“I am seeking for the bridge which leans from the visibleto the invisible through reality.”—Max Beckmann

Look for me in the ripples, the dripping eaves, the leaves

and honey-foaming butter. Rummage through the split-

pea soup, feverfew, the sink, the flutter of dew-soaked

youth. Check the streetlamp shadow, the puddle

that hovers between light and dark

because I am the bridge

over the invisible. Search the charcoal sparks, the flames

in the cave, the untamable page with its palpitating space.

Seek me in the fog that tip-toes across the sea, the moss

on the trees, feet. Forage through the wrinkled maps, ashes,

grass. Enter the trance of the milkweed breeze,

that pause in-between

but please

find me.

What quiet ache do you wear?

Do you place it on your dresser

or under the bathroom sink?

Do you spray it behind your ears,

rub it on your wrists,

or wait until late at night

to graffiti-streak it along sleeping streets?

Does it softly sink into your skin,

or is it a distant memory ready

for whoever can tug away

your cotton-edged layers

and brush it with their lips?

What soft scent of sorrow lingers

when you walk past;

what lemon melancholy

hovers in your wake?

Komorebi

There’s a heaviness

that smells like the inside

of a breathalyzer

but I haven’t had a drop to drink.

It tugs at my tourmaline

bones and sinks me

into the sleeping peat

where the earth percolates

in leaden surrender

and my womb of roots

begins to reach upwards

like nesting birds.

Let me lay here as I wait

for whatever gentle shape

I’m becoming

and watch the light

filter past the branches

like a promise.

In that brief passing with a stranger

I don’t know you.

I don’t know where you bought your jeans

or the color of your toothbrush.

I don’t know the number of mornings

you’ve woken up in this world,

what makes you sigh,

or how many times you’ve cried.

I don’t know where the skin creases

on your forehead when you think,

how fast you can run,

how old you were

when you first made love.

But for that fleeting pause,

that split in time when our eyes meet,

we love.

Andrea Reisenauer is a PhD candidate in translation studies who was born in the United States and now lives in Spain. You can find some of her older poems here and there, but she likes to think of herself as an emerging poet, which is her way of saying: stay tuned—there’s more on the way.